Dr Hannes R. Stephan, Lecturer in Environmental Politics, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling
For all the mixture of success and disappointment that COP26 in Glasgow has delivered, as reported by my colleagues on this blog, it is certainly true that the COP has boosted public awareness of the global climate crisis. But awareness or even rising concern does not necessarily equate to widespread and durable public support for ambitious climate policy. Might better climate change communication (with more narrative ‘pathos’) help to foster this support? There is no guarantee that it will, but it is certainly worth probing this possibility.
With newspaper headlines and even the UK’s TV programme being dominated by climate change, sceptics may justifiably ask what else we can do in terms of climate change communication. If there ever was a widespread social silence surrounding climate change, the rise of climate change activism and major events like COP26 have undoubtedly shattered this quietude.
The Governance Trap
What we have not yet managed, however, is to break out of the so-called climate ‘governance trap’. No doubt, a significant proportion of the public are rather concerned. Some citizens may be increasingly motivated to take action in their daily lives, but even they are acutely aware of the limitations of such small-scale efforts. Ambitious climate policy, in the eyes of most (and quite correctly), should be driven by government action, reforms of business operations, and agreements struck at international conferences.
Yet, it is evident that governments remain wary of burdening voters with measures that increase the cost of living or demand disruptive lifestyle changes. The short-term political costs of such leadership are often seen as prohibitive. Indeed, the current chatter about calls for a referendum on the UK’s net zero targets could well keep growing once the costs of new climate policies begin to mount. Overall, the confluence of political hesitancy and public expectations of top-down leadership leads to a situation in which “neither party acts in a decisive way” – i.e. the ‘governance trap’.
Neither COP26 nor the UK’s bold climate targets have resolved this dilemma. There remains a considerable ‘implementation gap’ between the government’s ambitious climate targets and its proposed policies.
Ineffective Climate Change Communication
Conventional communication strategies often rely on the ‘information deficit model’ of the public. Citizens are regarded as empty vessels in need of accurate information. Once this has been dispensed, we expect citizens to change their thinking and their behaviour. However, as we have seen in recent years, this type of linear communication does not even work reliably for major threats to individual and public health. Moreover, it is known to flounder when strongly held interest, values or beliefs are at stake or when the perceived costs of taking action are high.
Many commentators have come to accept that most people’s reception of new information is primarily ‘cultural’ rather than ‘rational’ or scientific. It is filtered through the lens of existing cultural identities and political ideologies. For instance, climate sceptics often question the existence of the climate crisis because they fear the consequences of climate action. These would potentially clash with deep-rooted values, as they may involve more government intervention, regulation, and perhaps higher taxes or other restrictions on consumer freedoms.
Given widespread public interest in the impact of climate policies, rather than in debating the detailed findings of climate science, a first step for climate communicators should therefore be to focus on policies designed to achieve long-term net zero targets.
Social Marketing or Framing
Frequently, attempts to convince the public have taken the form of ‘social marketing’ efforts. This includes the use of short slogans and abbreviated storylines – usually called ‘frames’ in the academic literature. For example, some segments of the public may be attracted by demands for ‘climate justice’, which implies that the poor and marginalised should be protected from climate change while richer and more capable countries (or persons) should carry the lion’s share of the economic burden of mitigation and adaptation. On the other hand, some frames (incl. climate justice) could lead to political polarisation because they appeal to some groups in society while repelling others. Thus, in the United States, framing the climate crisis in terms of environmental protection or human rights even increased scepticism among right-of-centre segments of the population, such as Republican voters.
Multiple framing experiments reported in the literature have certainly delivered some key insights. To summarise a few: talk of the climate crisis or climate emergency carries the risk of fatalist ‘doomism’, unless it is accompanied by plausible policy solutions and a broader message of hope. Frames that emphasise personal sacrifice tend to be less effective than those highlighting the benefits of climate policies for public health or co-benefits such as reduced air pollution.
Targeting different segments of the population with tailor-made frames can undoubtedly yield dividends. But it may require constant, repetitive efforts and, as David Roberts puts it, “power, money, access to media, and […] heroic message discipline.” Faced with such onerous prerequisites, we might also consider other forms of narrative communication.
Narrative climate change communication
It might be the case that more comprehensive narratives – well beyond the narrative snippets and slogans of climate change frames – capture citizens’ attention more reliably. Humans are hardwired to listen to narratives and these larger storylines would be designed to inspire and to motivate people. The pull of successful narratives is sometimes described as ‘narrative transportation’, that is, the kind of profound immersion that people seek in the cinema or by reading a novel.
Not unlike the grand ideologies of old, deliberately constructed, strategic narratives do at least have the potential to deeply influence citizens, motivating them to look beyond short-term self-interest and the status quo – economic, political, and cultural – and to see themselves as an integral part of a larger collective, transformative project.
Admittedly, there is a shortage of useful analogies for such narrative transformation. One group of scholars who highlighted the power of strategic narratives cited the example of the ‘space race’ during the Cold War. When US President Kennedy visiting NASA’s space project in 1962, “[h]e asked a cleaner what he was doing. The reply came: ‘I’m helping put a man on the Moon’.”
Might such widespread and deep commitment to a larger cause still be possible in this day and age? And how would its equivalent look like for urgent climate action? To my knowledge, these questions remain largely unanswered, but the potential of strategic narratives should not be dismissed out of hand. Of course, such narratives would also need substantial resources to be created and disseminated. Perhaps a decentralised network of civil society actors, rather than governments, would be best placed to undertake such a project.
Certainly, climate activists and their supporters in society have long accomplished the mental shift implied by strategic climate narratives. Yet, alongside well-targeted climate frames, the key to breaking the ‘governance trap’ may be involving additional segments of the public in such a purposeful endeavour. And to thereby open up political space for not just longer-term net zero targets but also for actually delivering them through ambitious, well-crafted climate policies.